The Associated Press

COLUMBUS - Communities in central and southern Ohio are watching their budgets much more closely because of the economy, said an official who monitors local-government spending.

"Our people are seeing more small cuts, travel cuts, training cuts, more-stringent management of overtime" in the past 18 months, said John Mahoney, executive director of the Ohio Municipal League.

He said harder-hit northeast Ohio communities have resorted to more severe cutbacks and layoffs.

One way the city of Delaware in central Ohio has saved money has been to make its own official license plates for police.

"Ordering from a vendor would cost about $40" per set, police Capt. Mark Drum said. "All it cost me was $179 to buy the reflective tape and numbers, so I figured we could do this ourselves."

He said he's saving the city $341 by making the 13 pairs of three-digit plates, which are different from the state-issued license plates required for most other vehicles.

Elsewhere in Delaware, the parks department won't buy a $10,000 chain-link fence as planned and workers last week planted the last batch of trees for the foreseeable future.

"Why buy something when you don't need it?" said Public Works Department crew leader Keith Blankenship, who helped Capt. Drum manufacture the 26 plates.

He and assistant Steve Hagelgans cut leftover aluminum traffic-sign scraps into license plate-size rectangles. They laid reflective backing and numbers on the metal pieces before feeding them through a roller press.

Powell City Manager Steve Lutz said that whenever possible, his office has eliminated paper waste. City ordinances will be posted online instead of being printed, saving as much as $8,000. Printed copies still will be available for those without computer access.

"The city sends out about 2,000 notices a year for zoning violations, so we're changing from sending a letter to a postcard," Mr. Lutz said.